Angel_Grace_Blue Posted May 3, 2006 Report Posted May 3, 2006 I agree that books from English class were good, but I enjoyed reading them at the time, not just fondly looking back. Anyway, I really like Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It's the memoirs of an British ex-pat trying to get a career in writing for Vanity Fair magazine. He fails horribly. However, it does work as a cautionary tale for an aspiring writer (For magazines or anything else) by teaching such lessons as "Don't become an alcoholic and roll into work at noon hungover (Or drunk)", "Don't develop a coke habit" and "Don't hire a stripper-gram for your buddy on Take Our Daughters to Work Day". Douglas Coupland's Microserfs is another book I've read a few times. I've heard his earlier novel, Generation-X is great, but I've never gotten around to picking it up. A 'warning' about Microserfs: some basic knowledge of the computer industry around the early 90s (And perhaps before that) might help. The references to the 'Look and Feel' case, among other things, made no sense to me. Still a good book, though. Any play by Tom Stoppard (Even though I've only read Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, it's enough for me to really like Stoppard) is also a good pick.
vivalaultra Posted May 3, 2006 Report Posted May 3, 2006 viva: I don't think A Separate Peace is really the same as The Catcher in the Rye at all. They're similar insofar as they both take place at Northeastern prep schools in the 1940s, but that's pretty superficial. I think The Catcher in the Rye is more general in how it handles the whole coming-of-age thing, whereas A Separate Peace is more specific. Everything is based around the guy pushing his friend out of a tree and indirectly causing his death. Gene and Holden are pretty different characters to me. Holden is basically going at it alone in the book; he comes in contact with lots of various characters throughout, but they just drift in and out and aren't as pivotal to the plot. There's never the same dynamic between Holden and Stradlater or Holden and Ackley or anyone as there is with Gene and Finny, so that definitely makes SP different. Also, did anyone else notice that there are some really homoerotic sequences in there? Comes with the territory at an all-boys school, I guess. Yeah, as far as plotlines, they were different, but it just seemed like they needed to have a "coming of age" book and since they couldn't do Salinger, they went with another one. The general feel was similar, to me at least, even if the characters were different. It was both about preppy kids growing up in the middle 20th century. And A Seperate Peace was totally homoerotic. That was actually part of the reason my English class hated it so much....teenagers that we were. Everytime they said "BUTT Room", the whole class freakin' erupted. John Knowles actually wrote a sequel, Peace Breaks Out. I have it but haven't read it. Despite my ragging on it, I liked A Seperate Peace, but it just seemed like it was only there as an alternative to Catcher in the Rye.
Guest Posted May 3, 2006 Report Posted May 3, 2006 Fahrenheit 451 To Kill A Mockingbird Animal Farm The Chrysalids Lord Of The Flies Brave New World 1984 I bolded the ones we read, and The Stranger. We obviously read more, but I didn't think they were very good, and can't remember them for the life of me.
Hank Kingsley Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 What are everyone's favorite Shakespeare dramas? I'd probably go with Othello because 1) Othello says "Holla" and 2) Iago is probably my favorite literature villain ever. Overall though, I enjoyed Macbeth more. As for other dramas, I loved Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross and want to check out The Duck Variations and Orleanna. I also wanted to attempt some Goethe so I could have some background on my dream screenplay about a street racer who sells his soul for success. The Faust and the Furious.
Guest Felonies! Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 A Seperate Peace was totally homoerotic. That was actually part of the reason my English class hated it so much....teenagers that we were. Everytime they said "BUTT Room", the whole class freakin' erupted. That too, but I was referring more to how obsessed Gene was with Brinker's ass. There's like half a page dedicated to describing the contour of his ass.
Big Ol' Smitty Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 What are everyone's favorite Shakespeare dramas? Othello and King Lear.
CanadianChris Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 Romeo and Juliet saved my A in 11th-grade English. My favourite was always Macbeth, though.
Masked Man of Mystery Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 Mine was King Lear, but that was mostly because of a combination of we really went through it and the teacher made sure we were getting it all, and we got to watch Ran afterward. Ran is Kurosawa's adaptation of Lear, and one of his last movies. It was pretty cool. Macbeth was also interesting, and for some reason my teacher that year decided to show us Monty Python and the Holy Grail after. God, that rocked. It was perfect timing, too, because just before we finished it, the 2 disc DVD came out and I grabbed it on the 1st week sale
Hank Kingsley Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 Hmm, the AP Lit test pissed me off today, slightly. All of the open-ended essays I wrote/read in class usually dealt with a theme or a character. Last night I looked over several books (Slaughterhouse-Five, 1984, Macbeth, Glengarry Glen Ross) for details, themes, and characters. The prompt? About a book with a "country setting" that shows either virtue/innocence or ignorance and primitivism. Now, the question was worded poorly such that some people thought they meant as in a "countryside" while people like me extrapolated that to mean a country or just a setting in general, so I did Heart of Darkness. It's hard scrambling for details when you didn't review the book. Oh well, over and done with, finally.
Guest Felonies! Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 Hey, what was your DBQ for AP US, if you took it? I got the New Deal when I took it in '03. Boy, did I ever luck out. Women's rights would've killed me dead. One thing of many that bothered me about my AP English teacher was her adamant refusal to let us do open-ended essays on practice exams. You know how it lists like twenty books that fit the prompt? She'd cross off all but one and make us write about just one. Our conversation on this topic: "I just think that since the real deal is open-ended, it'd be better practice for us to have to come up with a book on our own, rather than limiting ourselves to the one we just read." "Yes." "Yes, so would you take that into consideration for our next practice test?" "I think we'll just write on one." (condescending smile throughout this) "Okay, but this doesn't properly prepare us for the actual exam." "Yes, I know." "So why can't we just do this exam as we would the real one?" "I think we're just going to stick with the book that I choose." "BUT IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY." "I know it doesn't." "SO WHY CAN'T WE JUST WRITE ON ANY BOOK." "I think we'll just write about one this time." Oh well. Dealing with a teacher who probably hasn't updated her lesson plans since 1982.
Hank Kingsley Posted May 4, 2006 Report Posted May 4, 2006 Ahahaha. I took US last year, and the DBQ was something ridiculous about how the Revolutionary War changed American society. Hmm. And the year before with World it was something obvious dealing with Buddhism. Now, I'm not so sure about the Euro one I have to do tomorrow. I really haven't studied as much as I should have. But yeah, if it deals with women and/or mass society, fuck.
King Kamala Posted May 6, 2006 Report Posted May 6, 2006 Hey, what was your DBQ for AP US, if you took it? I got the New Deal when I took it in '03. Boy, did I ever luck out. Women's rights would've killed me dead. I took it today and the DBQ was on the women's rights movement between after the Revolutionary War and before the Civil War. I let out an audible groan when I saw it and everybody else in the class either laughed at me or looked at me in disgust. I hope nobody from the College Board browses these forums or they might discard my test
Hank Kingsley Posted May 6, 2006 Report Posted May 6, 2006 You know what Euro's was? How Europe perceived organized sports from 1860-1940. Organized sports. Seriously.
snuffbox Posted May 9, 2006 Report Posted May 9, 2006 David Mccollough's 1776 is a pretty compelling narrative so far. Im going to go ahead and reccomend this book.
vivalaultra Posted May 16, 2006 Report Posted May 16, 2006 It's a shame that this thread is falling so far down the page. I don't have any new recommendations. I'm currently working my way through Gabriel Garcia Marquez's catalog. It's all good. After I finish all his books sometime in the next month, I plan to start reading (again, since I started it and stopped for some reason) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I hear it's good.
Guest Felonies! Posted May 16, 2006 Report Posted May 16, 2006 I'm going to Borders tomorrow to spend like $100. Results forthcoming!
FroGG_NeaL Posted May 16, 2006 Report Posted May 16, 2006 Regarding Shakespheare, I dig Macbeth the most, I'd say. And I want all of you to go read Motley Crue's Auto-Biography "The Dirt" right now. I don't care if you love 'em, hate 'em, barely know of them, whatever... It's a great fucking read, and I reccomend it highly to everyone. There are so many awesome stories, man, I love that book.
Guest Felonies! Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 Is it just me or has that fucking Motley Crue book been mentioned like four times now? EDIT: Okay, just three, but it's been you every time. We get it. Shut up.
FroGG_NeaL Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 Jesus, I didn't even think I'd been in this thread before. My bad, I've been smoking too much lately.
snuffbox Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 After reading the debate here about Catcher/Rye and Seperate Peace I decided to reread them both...but after finishing Catcher/Rye I didnt feel like stopping the Salinger flow and am now reading 9 Stories.
vivalaultra Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 I personally liked Franny and Zooey better than Holden "Emo" Caufield. Zooey kicks ass. The best short story is A Perfect Day for Bananafish. And I must concur that I do not now have, nor will I ever, have even the slightest inkling to read the Motley Crue book. A marginal 80s hair band just doesn't thrill me. They're all old and/or fat now anyway.
Giuseppe Zangara Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 The Motley Crüe book is supposed to be an entertaining read. On a slightly related note, in the Jane's Addiction book, Whores, you learn all about the freaky backstage sex stories of Marilyn Manson, including an account of Dave Navarro sucking Manson's dick "just because he could."
Giuseppe Zangara Posted May 17, 2006 Report Posted May 17, 2006 Oh, I'm in the process of finishing up John Barth's Giles-Goat Boy, a 700+ page satire of the Cold War, filled with sex, rape, beastiality, pedophilia, homosexuality, miscegenation, blasphemy...all played for laughs. And the central character is a young man raised as a goat in the goat heard of the animal husbandry department of a New England college. [edit]With its deliberately provocative content, this novel's escaping controversy when it was published (1966) can only be chalked up to lack of a good publicist.[/edit] [edit, again]I should note that the New England in this book really isn't New England. The action takes place entirely on one college campus, which acts as a microcosm for the world as a whole. For instance, this being a Cold War satire, you have the West Campus standing in as a substitute for the U.S. and the East Campus taking the place of the Soviet Union.[/edit, again] Next up will be Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which I figured I should read before they start production on the film version.
Giuseppe Zangara Posted May 18, 2006 Report Posted May 18, 2006 I told you the grammar essay was largely insufferable pedantry. I still haven't finished CTL, and I don't know that I will anytime soon.
vivalaultra Posted May 18, 2006 Report Posted May 18, 2006 I'm disappointed to hear that the grammar stuff in Consider the Lobster is pedantic. I hear enough pedantic grammar squibbling at school. I did really enjoy A Supposedly Fun Thing... so I'll have to check it out anyway. However, I never made it all the way through Infinite Jest, I'm saddened to say... Soooooo long. Sooooo many pages.
Giuseppe Zangara Posted May 18, 2006 Report Posted May 18, 2006 I like what I've read of Consider the Lobster well enough; the problem is that the more I read it, the more I realize it's just same ol' DFW. He's kinda on autopilot.
Mystery Eskimo Posted May 19, 2006 Report Posted May 19, 2006 I saw a mention for Ian McEwan's "Saturday" earlier in the thread, and having just finished that I'd definitely recommend. I'm currently reading "Catch as Catch can", a collection of Joseph Heller short stories. Hit and miss, but generally entertaining.
Giuseppe Zangara Posted May 21, 2006 Report Posted May 21, 2006 Roughly 80 pages into American Pastoral and holy moly, Philip Roth, where have you been all my life?
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